Letter: And now the rest of the 9/11 story

Today my memory jumps back almost a half century to the day I had an exclusive and extensive interview with the late Paul Harvey as a guest aboard his private plane. Mr. Harvey, a news commentator well-loved and well-respected by millions of primarily radio listeners, was in town to present a lecture detailing behind-the-scen...

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Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

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Posted Sep. 17, 2013 at 2:51 PM

Posted Sep. 17, 2013 at 2:51 PM

Oak Ridge, Tenn.

To the Editor:

Today my memory jumps back almost a half century to the day I had an exclusive and extensive interview with the late Paul Harvey as a guest aboard his private plane. Mr. Harvey, a news commentator well-loved and well-respected by millions of primarily radio listeners, was in town to present a lecture detailing behind-the-scenes of current events. The printed article gave me my first international byline. He also became my first journalist mentor. As many readers of this letter will recall, Paul had a signature catch-phrase: “And now the rest of the story ….”

Today, I give you “the rest of the story” as I recall the personal events of 9/11.

New York was a vacation destination, a city to go to help assemble a Thanksgiving Day parade, and sometimes a place to do business. It was on such a business trip I made my first entry into Tower II of the World Trade Center (WTC). I had been flown to New York by my publisher to meet with a respected lawyer/college dean who had composed a legal handbook that, to this day, is still being used on college campuses. I was given the ghost-writing assignment of turning his legalese into common English. After the meeting, my agent and I had some time to “kill” before we went to a celebratory lunch closing the deal. Standing on the sidewalk we looked up and noted that we were just blocks away from the WTC, which was enclosed but still under construction. With a “why not!” we set off on foot to the complex. Standing in the courtyard we spied a pile of hardhats. Without saying a word, we each grabbed and doffed a hardhat and strove purposely into Tower II. The lobby was a scene of controlled bedlam. We got to the elevator without being challenged and took the lift to the 85th floor. When the door opened, the vista was breathtaking. There was nothing between us and the great outdoors but the exterior window curtain wall. We were the sole occupants of this space. For some 20 minutes we strolled in a circle around the elevator/stairwell core gaping out the windows at the beauty before us. After getting our quota of awe, we retraced our steps back to the courtyard, returned our hardhats, and went to lunch speechless.

Fast forward a decade or so later. I was hired as a computer technician for the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, Va. The building seemed familiar. In fact it had been designed as a “mini-me” of the WTC by the same architectural firm. But with one major exception: much more steel was used to support the structure of the Bank building. We also had as much square footage underground in atom bomb-hardened vaults as we had enclosed in the visible tower. My major responsibility was designing, installing, and maintaining the cabling infrastructure used by the various computer systems in the building and all satellite locations in the mid-Atlantic region. Periodically we would gut a floor to upgrade workstations and other physical structures, which would leave a void between the elevator core and the exterior window curtain wall. It was during these events I would have recollections of my visit to the 85th floor.

Page 2 of 3 - Another strand of my revere is that while employed by the Fed, I began work on my private pilot's license. My instructor was an officer in the Virginia Air National Guard. You should also realize that across the street from the Bank was a field used as a heliport by the Bank and several other power players of the manufacturing variety. Several times a day aircraft were coming and going from this patch of earth. And you should also know that sometimes light fixed-wing aircraft would use a glide-slope path paralleling the James River to the south of the Bank. On rare occasions one could look down from the 24th floor and read the markings on top of the wings of these planes.

It is public knowledge that the major computer hardware is located on daylight floors, a local “political” decision. This unnerved me then. It still unnerves me today. I had the “bright” idea of demonstrating the vulnerability of this arrangement by having the building “assaulted” by aircraft, primarily helicopters, whose occupants would fire paint balls at the windows. This would be done early on a Sunday morning and would be coordinated with the window washer vendor. My instructor would conduct it as an Air National Guard training exercise with no cost to the Bank. When I presented this concept to my superiors, it was met by derision — to put it mildly.

Another strand is that during the era of Bush I, I had firsthand knowledge of the type of person the son, W., was. Without getting into too much detail, I had foreknowledge that on the day W. was sworn in as President, it was just a matter of time before a major offensive by a Middle Eastern entity against the United States was forthcoming. It was not a question of “If?” but of “When?”

Another twisted thread of this remembrance was that the back-up site for a national or regional disaster to the Richmond Bank was Baltimore, Md. Using Baltimore was also a “political” decision. Once or twice a year we would spend a week in planning a “catastrophe” that would involve packing up and moving to the alternate recovery site. The planning/operations manual could weigh a pound or two. In the Federal Reserve, nothing was left to chance.

One final note: Sept. 14. 2001, was to be the unveiling of a two-year, $14 million ecurity upgrade of the building. We were protected from car bombs and assault on foot or a land vehicle by would-be terrorists.

Sept. 11, 2001, was a glorious fall day in Richmond. Mid-morning my team was urgently summoned to our supervisor's office. We were informed of the violent attack on the first WTC building, and that we were going into lockdown. When the plane deliberately flew into the second tower, we went into emergency mode: non-essentials were sent home. The away team was assembled to go to Baltimore. Then the plane was flown into the Pentagon. It was decided that there was no way to get to Baltimore: all major roads through D.C. were closed! That is we received the call from the White House transferring the operation of the fiscal infrastructure of the United States government to the Richmond office of the Federal Reserve. We had to put computers into hardened vaults that were designed to be impenetrable. Today, thanks to wireless technology, this would not have been a problem. But, back then, computers needed cables, and they needed them yesterday. Thanks to my fellow team members and the staff of the Building and Engineering (B&E) Department, we had computers up and running by supper. When the Treasurer of the United States and Director of the Federal Reserve took their places in their make-shift offices that evening, the economy of the United States (and quiet possibility of the free world) pulsed through our building. Such was the case for almost three weeks.

Page 3 of 3 - 9/11 puts me in a state of melancholy. I get a case of “What If?” — what if I had pushed for the air-born blitz of the building? Would this have alerted the “powers that be” a full year beforehand that a tower could be placed under fire? The afternoon of 9/11 I am in the office of the Director of B&E watching on his big screen TV the collapse of the twin towers. It was just him and me. I felt extreme sorrow for him. He had spent $14 million and two years protecting us from past forms of assault. Needless to say, there never was an unveiling and celebration.

For my small part in maintaining the economic status quo, the Fed handsomely rewarded me financially and with a certificate of commendation. All I did was what I committed myself to — to do my best.

The following Easter I'm in New York to attend a sunrise service. What a more fitting time and place to celebrate the Resurrection than in a city that had seen such devastation and with a church community whose members were so recently touched by such senseless death. On Good Friday, I walk from the UN Building down to the Battery. On my way I pass by the hospital where a temporary morgue, composed of a collection of mobile buildings, was assembled in the parking lot. Mid-afternoon I stop and take in my surroundings. To my right, sunlight is streaming through the trees: a strange sight because I should have been staring at two towers rising above the treetops. But I was touched by the warmth of the sun. And I was touched by the warmth of the Son who promised never to leave us.